VIA FLAMINIA

The Via Flaminia is an efficient and necessary highway. It traverses the heart of Italy from Rome to the Adriatic Sea, and therefore is constantly bustling with legions marching, carpentums and chariots rumbling, and mercantile wagons creeping. It also is rumored to be infested with bandits. They lurk behind every tree, every monument, every building within striking distance of hapless citizens who innocently traverse this road for good purpose.

Be on your guard! they tell us. Wolves are about. Be wary of any and all who look suspicious. We are doing our best to protect you, and many times, unbeknownst to you, we have saved you from imminent doom, but you must do your part as well. Listen to every word you hear. Gather information that we can use against them, and know that they are not good Roman citizens. They aim to destroy us, but by working together, our Empire can be saved. Do as we say, give us the powers we need to protect you and it will be done.

I do not believe them. They tell lies. They use fear to keep us distracted, keep us loyal to their treachery. The brain of a fearful man cannot apply logic, and a man who cannot apply logic will sacrifice all of himself to these supposed protectors, illogically thinking this will allay his fears.

No such power will I give to thieves in hiding. I travel the Via Flaminia alone. I travel confidently and on foot, for I do not fear what I cannot see.

Strangely, on this day I see no man good or evil. Where are my fellow travelers? My soldiers? My fellow citizens? Merchants? Any personage of any ilk? As the distant city gates of Ocriculum, my home, disappear from my rear view, an eerie silence befalls the highway. Only my footsteps are heard: no birds, no rustling of breeze-propelled leaves or branches where birds should be. Heel to toe, left and right, a click and a clack of my leather-soled sandals carry me in a rhythmic pace from west to east.

Midway to Narnia brings nothing but greenish-brown grasslands to my left and right, with finely cut stones of pavement directly ahead as far as my eyes can see. But this perfectly engineered and straight line is interrupted by the only trees in my view. Three of them. But are they trees? With each step closer, I realize they are not. They are crosses of T, of patibulum and stipes, lined in a row, spaced evenly apart and with three human forms suspended to their wood, facing the Via Flaminia.

The humans are male. They are tragically beautiful. They are naked. Their skin glistens with sweat, and with their wrists wrapped by rope and arms stretched to either side of their crossbeams, each man strains his arms and expands his chest, struggling to alleviate pain, struggling to breathe. With their ankles allowed to dangle freely, each man on occasion plants his feet flat to the vertical stipes, lifts himself seconds at a time, inhales deeply, and then allows gravity to resume its purpose: a slow death by suffocation.

I find it strange that no soldiers are about. Customarily, they guard victims of crucifixion until their end, making sure no friends or family come to their rescue, while protecting the men on their crosses from those who would do them evil, those who would worsen their suffering with sadistic beatings or slicings of skin for sport. But there is nothing, no one, only a wooden ladder left abandoned and broken, laying in grass behind the crosses.

Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, only two of the three men can prolong his own suffering by use of feet. The third man, the man tied to the middle cross, has no legs. They are stumps, one ending just below his knee, the other just above where his knee had been.

"What is your story, friend?" I ask while standing before him, my nose three feet from and centered between his knee that is and knee that was. "What is your sentence? What have you done to warrant such an agonizing punishment of death?"

"I am damaged," he huffs and gasps for air, intaking just enough to exhale short spurts of words. "Deemed to be no longer of use."

"Because of your legs?"

"Yes."

"And what brought this about? This severing of your limbs?"

"I did battle for our Emperor... in the legions..."

"And upon which battlefield did you leave your legs, my brave warrior?"

"Mediolanum."

"Ah, Britannia! The meaningless war. The battle to conquer our perceived enemies who have nothing to do with our real enemies."

"I know nothing of politics, sir... I am a soldier... sworn to serve my Emperor."

"True, but who made this decision to crucify you? Who deemed you to be of no use to the Empire?"

"My Emperor."

"The elder or younger?"

"The younger."

"I see. The one who has never tasted battle. The one who shirks his opportunity for glory at every turn, yet dresses in clothes of a warrior to proclaim victories after the fact. The one who proclaims victories that do not yet exist. The one who callously sends real men to do real battle for him, while he instills fear amongst the citizenry in order to achieve his self-serving aims. The one who..."

"Please, sir... do not speak ill of him... I am not allowed to hear such talk... besides... he came here to... comfort me... not more than six hours ago."

"Did he come alone?"

"He brought with him... his scribes."

"And what did these scribes write about you and your predicament?"

"They wrote not of me... but of him... and of the sacrifices he made... in order to console me... in my hour of pain."

"I see. He truly is a gift from Jupiter, and a loyal disciple of Jupiter. He tells us so each and every day. He even speaks to Jupiter each and every day. I'm certain Jupiter suggested he come here to visit with you, to thank you for your service to the Empire before he abandoned you to struggle here all alone. I doubt that any assistance from the Empire or its Emperor the Younger will be forthcoming."

"Please, sir... no more words. Allow me... the dignity of suffering in solitude... I need positive thoughts now... for if I dwell on the injustice of it all... I will fall from Jupiter's favor... He will bar me from... the eternal peace of Elysium... ... so... please... spare me this talk... Hold your tongue... ... for my sake."

The soldier is correct, of course. His bleak future requires all the will-power he can muster, just so he can survive another hour, or maybe two.

I turn to my left, where another powerfully-built man struggles against his crucifixion.

"What is your story, friend? What have you done to deserve such horrific punishment?"

"I did my duty. I told the truth." With right foot planted to stipes, he elevates himself for breath, for talk.

"And what was your duty? What was the truth?"

"I gathered information for the Empire, secretly, of course."

"As a spy?"

"Yes."

"And what was this information?"

"That the people of Mediolanum are peaceful. That they had nothing to do with the attack perpetrated against the Empire. That they want nothing to do with our conflict, and in fact, have kept our true enemies from invading their lands."

"And why did this bring about your punishment?"

"It was the wrong information. It did not benefit the Empire's strategy for plunder."

"And so they crucify you to silence you?"

"This crucifixion is nothing compared to the tortures I endured at the hands of our enemies."

"And how did you fall into the hands of our enemies?"

"Emperor the Younger told of me. Announced to the world of my secret activities on his behalf."

"Is this not treason? To expose a spy working for benefit of the Empire?"

"It is."

"And is not treason punishable by death?"

"It is."

"Then why are YOU the one sentenced to die?"

"Emperor the Younger is a powerful and dangerous man. The scribes fear him. They write only good of him. The Senators cower before him, lest he accuse them of disloyalty to the Empire, which will bring about their ouster from the Senate, or worse."

"And so you must suffer."

"Not only myself, but all who know me, all who worked with me. As we speak, our enemies torture them as they tortured me."

"And does this not damage the security of our Empire?"

"Greatly. It will take generations to repair."

"Then my blood boils. Our true enemies are not in some far away land, but in the heart of Rome itself. You, my friend, are a patriot."

"I will die here an honest man, knowing I did my duty. Despite their betrayal, my resolve is firm. The Empire will survive. It will be rescued by the good citizens of Rome, for our ancestors built a strong foundation good and true, tenants that will defeat all enemies, those who attack from without and those who attack from within."

"I pray it is true, but something must be done soon."

"Perhaps you should speak with the third man."

"What say you, friend?" I move to front the man furthest right. "What is your story?"

"I was one of those Senators of whom he spoke."

"And how did you end up here?"

"I tried to do what I was elected to do."

"What was that?"

"Right the wrongs perpetrated upon our Empire. Several of us entered the Senate to do the bidding of our citizens, but our voices were stifled."

"By whom?"

"By our own party leaders. They are deeply entrenched, their pockets heavily lined with coins from the treasury, coins from the wealthy who like things just as they are. Party leaders are fat and happy. They do not take kindly to those who might offend Emperor the Younger. They will not tolerate those who wish to create waves, lest their ship be tossed about and some of their booty spilled."

"And so they send you here? To die like this?"

"Yes."

"Where are the others like you?"

"They fell into the party line. They, too, tasted wealth and liked it. Now, they serve the party and not the citizens who sent them to right these wrongs."

"But you did not fall?"

"I cannot be controlled. My mouth remains open."

"But you are here, crucified where no one can hear you."

"Then I will protest to myself."

Stepping back onto pavement of the Via Flaminia, I admire the magnificent forms of three crucified men. I absorb their beauty, for there is nothing more glorious than a naked male suspended from the cross, his muscular chest, arms, and belly flexing and straining against his torture, his phallus unnaturally inflated with blood to majestically pierce the air. Sad to think of it, such opposites of emotions, for even though his defiant struggle is a sight for lustful eyes, his pain and lingering death is a tragedy beyond compare. It causes the witness to wish natural law could be temporarily halted, to wish beauty such as this could be enjoyed without the pain and suffering that comes with it, without the inevitable and horrific end that awaits a crucified man.

But it is not to be. Natural law suspended would create chaos: no gravity to keep us and all we've built grounded, no rotation of earth to generate oxygen for us to breathe. We must have all of it or none of it, and so, these three men -- despite their beauty, despite their purety of heart and honor and duty to Empire -- these three men will be tortured and they will die. I do not want these men to die, but natural law says it must be so. Nothing can change this, but something can lessen the tragedy of it.

Taking that broken ladder, I prop its longer, four-step end to the vertical stipes of the centered cross. From my travel pouch I retrieve a coin, and three steps bring my face to the chest of my soldier.

"Here, loyal citizen, mighty warrior. Open your mouth and lift your tongue. It is for Charon, the ferryman. He will take you across the river for eternal rest."

My soldier takes his coin as I raise myself one more step to kiss his cheek. "You are true Roman. The gods will welcome you; we citizens will remember you; I will honor you." And as I descend one step at a time, I linger where I can strain to kiss his sweat-drenched and heaving chest, peck his horrifically stretched nipples with my lips, lick his tightly flattened and hard-muscled belly with my tongue. And as my feet steady me on the lowest rung I engulf his penis into my mouth. I take him to the back of my throat, crush him there while extending my tongue to remove salty sweat from his testicles. He shudders, my soldier does. I slavishly worship his manly tool, wrap my arms around his useless thighs. I tug downward with all my strength and he groans in agony. His body, further stretched, quickly weakens. His chest and diaphragm lose their battle to fill his lungs with oxygen, and as his gonads contract to jettison his semen into my mouth and down to my gut, I send my loyal soldier on his way. He takes Charon's coin with him, leaves his magnificent seed with me.

In same order and manner do I send each of these men to Charon, and no sooner do I extract the final dose of male elixir than does the Via Flaminia come alive with travelers. The cacophonous buzz of metal wheel to smoothed stone now reminds me that much work has yet to be done. Standing in grass at roadside, I admire my men one final time, their tortured bodies struggling no more, and with a gathering of my pouch I begin my journey of westward retracement: back to Ocriculum, beyond Ocriculum and on to Rome.

I cannot even tell you because I do not remember why I came to be on the Via Flaminia in the first place. Whatever the reason and whatever the destination is no longer of importance. I take with me the strength of three magnificent heroes, three loyal patriots, their mighty seeds digesting inside my belly. I walk confidently to Rome, for it is the place where I will do battle for them. I have no strategy, no clue as to what will happen when I get there, but my tortured men will be remembered. They travel with me. The foul crimes perpetrated against them and our Empire will be revenged, and it will be done with my knowing that these three sacrificial Romans will be there to guide me, to protect me, while they bask in the glories bestowed upon them from their new underworld home.